The Life and Lies of Suzie Costello
by Shrapnel-Chan
Summary: Suzie Costello is a master in the art of lying. Rated for mentions of abuse, suicide, and canon character death.


Suzie Costello is a master in the art of lying.

She has to be, to fool Jack and Owen and Tosh and Ianto into believing that she wasn't killing people, that she wasn't visiting a religious support and debate group, that she wasn't already preparing for the event of her death.

Her father would be so proud.

Her father, Alexander Costello. IT Tech Support Manager. He taught Suzie everything she knew about computers. He also taught Suzie how to lie.

Suzie, where did you get this bruise? I tripped and fell down the stairs. Clumsy, huh?

(Her father had gripped her wrist and tugged and her head had knocked against the fridge.)

Suzie, how could you forget your homework, again? Sorry, it slipped my mind; I'll write down tonight's homework on my hand, yeah? So I won't forget again.

(Her father had confiscated her textbooks because she hadn't had time to make dinner, she was so busy studying.)

Suzie, are you seeing any family for Christmas? No, Mum and Dad are on vacation; we'll celebrate when they get back in January.

(Her mother had left when Suzie was only seven, shouting and screaming at her husband that she wouldn't put up with his whoring his way through all the pubs and prostitutes in Wales and that she had already found someone else. The idea that Suzie's parents would voluntarily be in the same building was laughable, let alone that they would go on vacation together.)

Suzie was a master at lying.

So it was easy to convince Jack to let her have another look at the glove.

And it was easy to convince Owen that yes, she was fine, no, the glove wasn't having any negative affects on her, and no, he really didn't need to give her a psych evaluation just to make sure.

And it was easy to convince Tosh to let her borrow the techie's best scanner without supervision, even though Tosh supervises even Jack when he uses that scanner.

And it was easy to convince Ianto that no, she didn't need any help with her paperwork, yes, she would make sure to give him the files so that they didn't add to the jungle masquerading as their archives, and no, she didn't want any coffee when she was working on the glove, so could he skip her in the coffee run if it was on her desk, please?

And it was beyond easy to make sure the brunette and oh-so-Welsh PC didn't catch onto anything about the glove or the knife – not that she would remember anyways.

Though, the girl did have some good ideas – a formal liaison with the police would be beneficial, to both the police and Torchwood.

So it's a surprise to Suzie when she checks on the police investigation, only to discover that they have a scarily accurate diagram of the knife.

She should have known. The police were getting better, nowhere near Torchwood standards, of course, but technology was always improving, even without the extra push from alien tech. She should have known that the police would be able to recreate the murder weapon. She should have known.

And that PC, that nosy, Welsh PC. Retconned after her tour of the Torchwood Cardiff Hub, but the memories could be regained, given the correct trigger. And she had seen Suzie working on the knife, probably one of the first things she had seen, walking into the Hub.

The diagram would trigger the girl's memories. She would talk to her superiors, or hunt down Torchwood again, find Jack. She would tell Jack about the knife. Suzie would be killed, or Retconned. Standard Torchwood procedure. Ianto would file the paperwork, Owen would either measure out the dosage or perform her autopsy, Toshiko would log her out of Torchwood for the last time, and Jack would do the actual deed. Jack would either kill her or Retcon her. Suzie would have to leave. She would have to run.

That night, she finds PC Gwen Cooper walking around outside the water tower, a troubled look on her pretty, freckled face.

It's a surprise to Suzie when she shoots Jack – not that she lets any of her surprise show, of course, but she's still shocked that she just shot and killed the man who saved her from the frozen, naïve wreck she had been just after her father's sudden hospitalization.

It's not a surprise when Cooper starts to cry.

It scares the hell out of Suzie when she hears Jack's voice behind her, saying, "Put down the gun."

It is in this moment that Suzie realizes that she has lost. She didn't get the chance to run. And she did love this job, she really loved it.

"Suzie, it's over," Jack says, holding out his hand. "Now come with me."

Suzie is too numb to feel surprised when she lifts the gun to her chin and pulls the trigger, and then everything goes dark.

* * *

There is nothing but darkness.

Suzie didn't know what she was expecting; a bright light, maybe, like her mother used to tell her stories about before she left, stories that Suzie can only barely remember the tiniest hints of now.

There is nothing but darkness.

There is no sound. Suzie tries to speak, but though she knows, intellectually, that she is talking, singing, yelling, shouting, screaming, crying, sobbing, weeping, there is no sound.

She falls to her hands and knees, feeling nothing supporting her, and nothing moving past her, and nothing is filling her ears and nose and eyes and is creeping under her fingernails and into every crevice, every pore, until Suzie _is_ nothing.

And then she feels it: that gut instinct that raises the hairs on the back of her neck when she is being watched by someone, that makes her fingers falter in their scrabbling in the nothing, that makes her stand up on the nothing and whirl around to face… nothing.

There is nothing but darkness.

But she knows. Suzie knows that there is something in the darkness, in the nothing, that is watching, waiting, and moving to circle around her, like a lioness circles her prey before she pounces.

A warm, bright light permeates through the darkness.

* * *

Suzie Costello gasps back into life, angry and yelling and pale and oh-so-very-dead.

Jack is talking to her, asking her something about Max and Pilgrim.

Jack, who saved her.

Jack, who looked after her for years.

Jack, who she killed.

A Welsh, feminine voice is saying "Sorry" behind her, and Suzie realizes that it's PC Gwen-bloody-Cooper, stealing her job and her projects and her life.

Suzie longs for the darkness, for the nothing that seeps into every fiber of her being, for the thing in the dark that waits for Jack Harkness and the day that he will not return to this wonderful world of light and sound and color and feeling.

So when she opens her eyes again, it's really a surprise to her.

It's a surprise that Cooper is trying to be so nice, despite having taken everything that was Suzie Costello.

Suzie looks at Cooper. She looks pretty guilty over the whole thing. _Not guilty enough_, a tiny part of Suzie croons, the same part that encouraged her to work with the glove and the knife and to talk to Max and to not tell Jack or anyone about the Retcon or Pilgrim or her father or her mother or her life.

So Suzie asks Cooper, "Have you slept with Owen?"

Cooper's blush and glance down at the table tells Suzie all she needs to know about that.

So Suzie lies, and says, "There you go. Replaced me completely."


End file.
